Bovier, Anton, 1957-

Statistical mechanics of disordered systems : a mathematical perspective / Anton Bovier. - Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2006. - 1 online resource (xiv, 312 pages) : digital, PDF file(s). - Cambridge series on statistical and probabilistic mathematics ; 18 . - Cambridge series on statistical and probabilistic mathematics ; 18. .

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Principles of statistical mechanics -- Lattice gases and spin systems -- Gibbsian formalism for lattice spin systems -- Cluster expansions -- Gibbsian formalism and metastates -- The random-field Ising model -- Disordered mean-field models -- The random energy model -- Derrida's generalized random energy models -- The SK models and the Parisi solution -- Hopfield models -- The number partitioning problem.

This self-contained book is a graduate-level introduction for mathematicians and for physicists interested in the mathematical foundations of the field, and can be used as a textbook for a two-semester course on mathematical statistical mechanics. It assumes only basic knowledge of classical physics and, on the mathematics side, a good working knowledge of graduate-level probability theory. The book starts with a concise introduction to statistical mechanics, proceeds to disordered lattice spin systems, and concludes with a presentation of the latest developments in the mathematical understanding of mean-field spin glass models. In particular, progress towards a rigorous understanding of the replica symmetry-breaking solutions of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick spin glass models, due to Guerra, Aizenman-Sims-Starr and Talagrand, is reviewed in some detail.

9780511616808 (ebook)


Statistical mechanics.
Mathematical statistics.
Probabilities.
System theory.

QC174.8 / .B67 2006

519.5